TVC Capital Cashes in on Accordent, GA Aeronautical Systems Delivers Last Predator, Ortiva Wireless Forms Tech Alliance, & More San Diego BizTech News

It was relatively quiet on San Diego’s tech front last week, but the mix of news was unusual and interesting. Check it out for yourself.

—San Diego-based TVC Capital, a small private equity investment firm focused solely on software deals, was the lone investor in El Segundo, CA-based Accordent Technologies, which was acquired last week for $50 million by Pleasanton, CA-based Polycom (NASDAQ: [[ticker:PLCM]]). Accordent provides video content management technology.

—Seattle-based RealNetworks (Nasdaq: [[ticker:RNWK]]) and San Diego-based Ortiva Wireless formed a global business and technology alliance that will combine Ortiva’s video optimization technology with RealNetworks’ flagship Helix Universal Media Server. Merging Ortiva’s technology with Helix media servers will help save radio bandwidth, enabling carriers to accommodate more users on their radio access networks.

—Accelrys (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ACCL]]), the San Diego-based scientific software developer, signed a partnership agreement with Oxford Nanopore Technologies, a UK startup developing technology for detecting and analyzing single molecules. The Accelrys-Nanopore partnership will focus on developing software to provide real-time analyses of experimental data. Oxford Nanopore’s lead application is DNA sequencing, but the technology also could be used for protein analysis, diagnostics, and drug development.

—Poway, CA-based General Atomics Aeronautical Systems delivered its last MQ-1 Predator drone to the U.S. Air Force earlier this month. The company developed the innovative unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) under an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration contract awarded in 1994, and ultimately delivered a total of 284 MQ-1 Predators to the Air Force. The company is now delivering its next-generation UAV, the MQ-9 Reaper.

—Carlsbad, CA-based Upper Deck, a private trading card company founded in 1988, has unveiled a new kind of trading card that includes a two-inch video screen. The card plays a 60-second HD video clip of a professional football player from his college days. Upper Deck plans to release its “Evolution” video trading cards on April 12.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.